In recent years, the number of employers offering sabbaticals has grown exponentially. In addition, many more workers, especially employees in managerial and professional roles, are taking their own unpaid sabbaticals when their organizations fail to offer them. - Harvard Business Review
Kharkiv theatres closed at the start of the war; by the summer, the city’s famous puppet theatre performed a show about wartime in Bucha. Lapa has been hosting these performances at her house for the past three months. - The New Yorker
Dahl’s antisemitism was widely reported around the time of his death. His editors had entered discussions regarding the misogyny and racism in some of his other books. In some cases he listened and in others, he didn’t. Eventually, his US publishers had enough of his truculent behaviour. - The Conversation
“Poetry cannot save us, and yet the poets could do a great deal to redirect our minds and senses back to the proper object of their love…eyes schooled by the poets, as they look out on the ravaged landscape of our world.” - Hedgehog Review
I think in some areas of the arts we’ve moved backwards. It seems to me what you might call the design of neighborhoods, in the United States, is not obviously progressing. I think Hollywood movies are getting worse... There are definitely areas where there’s either no progress or retrogression. - The Point
"We invest every year in thousands of ideas and dreams, and only a few make it to the top. So I call it the Silicon Valley of media. We are angel investors of our authors and their dreams, their stories. That’s how I call my editors and publishers: angels.” - Harper's
"Less than 1 percent of movies released in 2022 feature a sex scene. ... When audiences have been conditioned to want only sexless Marvel movies, fully clothed Christopher Nolan epics, chaste action thrillers, and possibly cocaine bears, why take a chance on love?" - MSN (The Atlantic)
Proposition 28 creates a guaranteed annual funding stream for music and arts education by setting aside 1% from the state’s general fund. In 2023, that comes out to roughly $941 million. - EdSource
"Survey data showed that a bulk of (the site's) readers were in the 18-to-35 age bracket. ... To experiment with a new approach, The Conversation launched the Quarter Life series in March 2022, commissioning stories for people in their 20s and 30s." - Journalism.co.uk
Under the increasingly uncontrollable uncertainty of our financialized world, speculation becomes a more productive mechanism to imagine community and collective coping with disorienting volatility. Speculation, in this sense, is not merely a symptom but a structure. - Boston Review
"From familiar character actors lacking household names like Ronald Guttman, Dennis Boutsikaris, and Jessica Hecht, to well-known crossover stars like Bebe Neuwirth, Roger Bart, Billy Porter, and Laura Benanti, Law & Order has always made room for Broadway actors." - Looper
The dreariness of ChatGPT, the soulless works of visual art produced by similar programs seem to confirm that hunch. In the real world, the bots aren’t our overlords so much as the enablers of our boredom. Our shared future — our singularity — is an endless scroll, just for the lulz. - The New York Times
The Finnish National Opera and VR company Varjo developed a "digital twin" of the theater, with sets, lighting, costumes, etc, so that elements could be seen and fine-tuned before workers and material were committed. - Fast Company
A report released by Digital Citizens Alliance in August 2020 found that pirated streaming subscription services are used by an estimated 30 million individuals in the U.S. alone, generating over a billion dollars in revenue annually for the criminal enterprises operating these services. - The Hill
The law firm MinterEllison, a major supporter of the Southern Hemisphere's counterpart to the Edinburgh Festivals, pulled back after several participants withdrew from Adelaide Writers' Week over the appearance of two authors, both harshly critical of Israel and one of whom takes a Putinist line on Ukraine. - The Age (Melbourne)
